I was thinking more of stores that cater to a smaller market like a boutique, clothing store, and such.

Thanks for the article, I’ll be sure to take a look, stable is always good.

But, in a retail environment, I like when they keep the same stuff in the same place. I hate the fact that target moves my shampoo to a different area of the store practically every other time I go there.

I think that you can take Ed’s comment even a step further and apply the importance of good design to every element of a company that interacts with customers, vendors, and investors.

I wrote an article that was published in our member newsletter yesterday and posted on our blog today that goes into a lot of detail about how important a professional looking and stable brand is to the success of a company and how important good design is to that brand.

If you’re interested, it’s posted on our startup blog at:
http://startup.partnerup.com/2008/04/08/create-a-successful-brand-startups-small-business/

It’s the same with a business, if you’re leaving the same products on the shelves day in and day out, how is anyone going to get excited about your store, or even want to come back.

I think SBB has done very well and Yaro did an exceptional job with it. I’m just looking forward to creating a new experience.

Hi Meg, it’s great to meet you! Thank you for posting, I’m looking forward to it too.

Take my own website for instance. For the last 6 months or so I noticed that 50% of visitors stayed less than 10 sec. So I redesigned it and focused on more content and more areas for the eye to explore. On the first 2 weeks, lengthier visits increased 30%. How a visitor views a site is hinged on design.

People trust sites that are well designed because it evokes professionalism. They appear more stable. I tend to frequent blogs that are well designed, because to me the author is showing that they take what they are doing seriously.

Good design pushes a lot of psychological buttons.

Yes I agree business owners shouldn’t waste alot of time on thinking peripherally, but at the same time there are things that need to be done.

I have to say that I don’t exactly agree with you that new design is irrelevant, why wouldn’t we do what we can to make a better experience for visitors and make your site more appealing so users stay longer?

As for financially viable, I’ve been working behind the scenes with advertisers and many are curious as to the new advertising positions there will be. New design will open up for more income and more exposure for advertisers.

The biggest change as well is that I wanted the authors to have more exposure on the main page. After all, this site is not about me, but I’m bringing my experience to the table and sharing it here.

As for changes, I didn’t want to take over the site and make a mountain of changes right away, I don’t believe that would be smart business sense. I do believe change IS good so there will be changes, and solid ones too.

As the press release was written, it will bring in more people who are interested in SBB. I intend on creating press releases often as they will draw attention from others online, and I do intend on putting together media kits for offline press exposure.

I agree there must be new changes to take SBB to a bigger level, you may not have seen it, but in the background I’ve been creating guidelines, I’ve encouraged the current writers to write more, and I’ll be introducing new writers to the site as well. I’m also in the process of creating a report that will appeal to SBE’s that includes some of our current writers work.

The one thing you can count on is that I don’t let things stagnate and I have no problem making quick decisions or decisions that will move this site forward.

Congratulations on buying the site… I agree that it makes good business sense to buy Small Business Branding, however through your last press release and this current post you talk about the new ownership and the design changes you intend to make, whilst saying that new owners must not try to think peripherally.

New design, is quite frankly irrelevant to the average website user, unless underlined by the changes you intend to make in the user experience and the benefits to visitors…

I would love to hear how the website is going to be more financially viable to the new ownership? More importantly, What difference will it make to SMEs that are looking for advice? Will it really take engagement to another level?

Are there any really significant changes that we should be looking forward to, other than design which is, at this point, very peripheral?

You acquired a Brand as well as Business. One of things you must not lose sight of is the fact that although this is a branding blog, this isn’t a rebranding exercise.

Rather, it’s a business assessment and revitalisation drive by a new owner, and the business is where you must inject freshness. How are you going to create a rise in site impressions? There must be something unique and new to achieve this… a new website design does not achieve this.

I’m hoping this strikes up a dialogue about how we can help you achieve this by throwing in our own two pence